The pattern of the attack closely mimicked what British analysts call "a marauding terrorist firearms attack". The detailed planning, however, shows an increasing familiarity with advanced tactics, which is never a good development. As MilitaryGazettehas reported previously, this has been an increasingly prevalent spectre of Radical Islamist suicide terror tactics since at least 2008.

In Istanbul, it appears that the attackers worked in two groups, with an an initial attack at one end drawing security forces in that direction, before two more suicide bombers moved into the opposite end of the terminal, but on a different floor. Additionally, according to Turkey's NTV news channel (via RT), an armed four-man support team was seen fleeing the terminal building after the second and third explosions.

The increasing frequency and deadly scale of attacks - Paris, Brusselsand Orlandobeing only the best known - indicates a far more aggressive expansion of IS terror operations outside their main operational zones in Syriaand Iraq. Indeed, IS-linked attacks have killed over 1,500 worldwide, with nearly 3,400 wounded in the last eighteen months.

Terrorist groups are not hard to suppress. But the governments of the world need to be willing to suppress them. It is increasingly, painfully, clear that the world's governments may well lack the will.